The Vatican is taking issue with the fight for marriage equality in Europe and around the world, saying that same-sex couples live in a "different reality" and continue to chase the "utopia" of equality.
L’Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Holy See, printed a front-page editorial on Monday titled "Marriage Is Not a Contract," claiming, according to a Google translation of the text, that same-sex couples live in some sort of "different reality" where they believe the foundations of society will not quake if an "utopia" of equality, which "caused such damage in the twentieth century," is achieved.
Via Think Progress:
Saying that marriage between a woman and a man is equal to that between two homosexuals is, in fact, a denial of the truth that affects one of the basic structures of human society, the family. We cannot base a society on these foundations without then paying a very high price as happened in the past when there was an attempt to achieve total economic and social equality. Why repeat the same mistake and chase after an unattainable utopia?
The Vatican's editorial condemns same-sex couples adopting children, stating that this will only lead to "new forms of exploitation" in science, according to a Google translation.
The article also criticizes a piece that appeared in the French Catholic weekly Temoignage Chretien, which endorsed the country’s controversial gay marriage bill, according to Queerty. The Vatican says the French article seeks to only promote what is trendy, reports The Hindu Business Line. “Being Catholic is about much more than embracing fashionable cultural standpoints," writes the Vatican.
The editorial follows Pope Benedict XVI's declaration that same-sex marriage goes against nature and threatens justice and peace.
"There is…a need to acknowledge and promote the natural structure of marriage as the union of a man and a woman in the face of attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different types of union," he said during his World Day of Peace 2013 address Friday. "Such attempts actually harm and help to destabilize marriage, obscuring its specific nature and its indispensable role in society. These principles are not truths of faith, nor are they simply a corollary of the right to religious freedom. They are inscribed in human nature itself, accessible to reason and thus common to all humanity."
On Sunday, gay rights activists peacefully picketed in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City during the pope's weekly prayers to proest his anti-gay comments. An online campaign featuring photos of LGBT people with the phrase "I am a threat to peace" was also launched in Italy and has already posted thousands of images to its Facebook page.
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